


run, but not away

by charcoalsuns



Series: sportsfest 2018 [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, implied shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-06-12 11:26:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15338853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcoalsuns/pseuds/charcoalsuns
Summary: In which the sun is bright and the company is brighter and there is nowhere to hide forever.





	run, but not away

**Author's Note:**

> (BR 1) [for a prompt by tookumade](https://sportsfest.dreamwidth.org/7464.html?thread=213544#cmt213544):
> 
> TIME: approximately 3 minutes away from getting their asses kicked by Iwaizumi  
> PLACE: at the back of the school's main gymnasium, hiding for their lives

  


"Here? How's here?"

"Don't look at me, just _go!_ "

" _Fine_ , I get it, I'm going--"

"Did Kindaichi see us?"

Hanamaki looks at him. "What?"

Matsukawa skids a few strides further. "Kindaichi," he says, pivoting around to join Hanamaki where he's leaned his back against the wall. He ducks down to match, both their heads protected - for now - out of sight below the propped-open windows of the gymnasium. "You know that if Iwaizumi asks him, we're definitely done for."

Hanamaki, foreboding added to the smoothie of glee and adrenaline in his chest cavity, chances a tiny peek over the sill. "He... doesn't _look_ like he saw us," he whispers into brick and metal. "No shifty, guilty glances around. Nor Yahaba, for that matter."

"Good call," says Matsukawa, laughing quietly. "Think we're safe?"

"From Iwaizumi?" Hanamaki retracts his head from the window. "Never."

Behind them, calls of _Iwaizumi!_ and _Iwaizumi-san?_ in varying degrees of concern, urgency, and amusement can be heard from the courts within. A single _Iwa-chan, how can you even see anything with your face scrunched up like an old lizard?_ sails outside, unobstructed by the sound of a volleyball hitting its target.

Hanamaki snorts into the back of his hand. "Ah," he sighs, heart rate not so much racing now as jogging leisurely as he calms, "We sure are home."

There isn't much by way of grass at the back of the gymnasium, uncovered and unwatered as the ground is, but it's been a few days since it last rained, and anyway, if they stray too far from the bottom half of the wall, they'll be seen. The butts of their practice shorts plant into the dust with no further fanfare.

"Should've grabbed a couple water bottles while we escaped," Matsukawa says. His head rests against the clean, warm bricks, eyes closing to the sun on his face, and Hanamaki, looking at him yet again, feels assent dry on his tongue.

It's a warm day.

Inexplicably, unrelatedly, Hanamaki has a small thought of wanting to lend Matsukawa a swipe of lip balm, or, possibly, of wanting himself to turn away.

Given the circumstances, he can just barely manage the latter.

The sounds of practice continuing filter through the windows above them. It's a bit peaceful, a bit surprising how peaceful it is, to be sitting on a stretch of baked earth with patches of sweat forming behind his knees.

Matsukawa's hair turns dark brown in direct sunlight. Hanamaki runs a hand through his own, and leans again into the wall.

From the gymnasium, familiar shouts and rhythms ease the rush of slight, very mild panic, very negligible apprehension he had played host to for the duration of their mad dash for cover, until all that remains is glee, once more.

"The look on his face," Matsukawa says into the quiet, like he can hear what Hanamaki's remembering. When he turns his head, mid-silent-laugh, it's to find himself being watched, Matsukawa's eyes squinting ridiculously against the glare from the sky. Ridiculously. He looks ridiculous.

"The old lizard one?" Hanamaki grins, even as warmth takes over the back of his neck, even as he wishes Matsukawa would do him a favor and fit the unflattering exaggeration himself, if only a little.

Matsukawa laughs, low and carrying on a breeze between them. "Our dear captain's not always full of it," he says. In his sun-pinched expression is still that particular kind of confidence that finds purchase among them all, and for a brief second Hanamaki feels almost at odds with the partial blame Oikawa had surely been noogied for earlier.

"Oh? And what have we here?"

Almost.

"We're not hiding," Hanamaki explains, craning his head up instinctively toward their _dear captain's_ delighted, deliberate voice.

"Hmm," is his only reply before flyaway hair disappears back into the gymnasium with a smirk, and in unassuming tones, _Iwa-chan! Guess who is at this moment skipping out on practice and certainly not hiding from you?_ takes his place leaning out the window toward them.

"Oh, damn," says Matsukawa. Despite his words, he's closed his eyes again.

Hanamaki glances around, very negligible apprehension resurfacing slightly as Iwaizumi's voice follows. "They'd better know there's no hiding from me. And they'd better know to get their dumb asses back in here before I go out there and _make_ them."

But despite _his_ words, there's no subsequent thunder of approaching footsteps, and Hanamaki lets out a breath. He looks over. "Think we're safe?"

Matsukawa squints his eyes open toward him, corners scrunched up like he's smiling. "For now?" He shifts, hands on his knees as he pushes to his feet, unfolding from the waist. "Sure."

Hanamaki sits in silence for a beat, then slaps at Matsukawa's hand until he reacts, reaching out and leaning back on his heels to pull him up, too. "Right then," he says, stretching his arms out and blinking the spots from his eyes, "The courts await us."

There's a snort at his side, a shake of a sun-warmed head of hair.

But Matsukawa lands a light hand on his shoulder as he starts walking toward the gymnasium steps, saying, "We should do this more often," and leaving Hanamaki to wonder which precipice, exactly, he's referring to.

  



End file.
